Book Recommendation: The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

Recently I finished reading The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace.  It is the story of a brilliant young African American man from Newark, NJ, who graduated from Yale, and then returned home.  It tracks his experience living between very different American cultures.  

In a couple of ways, Robert Peace inspired my word for the year, ask.  Though on the outside, he and I seem like we couldn't be more different, two aspects of Robert Peace's story strike home for me.

One is that his elite education had drawbacks for him.  As much as Yale opened doors for Peace, it also built a rigid model of expectations that structured Robert Peace's exterior and interior experience.  Expectations about who he should be and what kind of work he should do constrained the potential vast range of his life.  The world of ideas that he lived in for four years in New Haven was a stark contrast to Newark, irrelevant, even sometimes dangerous, in the context of his real life.  And what was worse, though the cultural gap between Yale and Newark was real, there was shame and confusion for him in not being able to bridge it effectively.  

Palo Alto is no Newark, that is for sure.  But, with regard to some of the mundane challenges of my own life--say caring for a colicky baby or encountering grief, my own education has sometimes felt extravagant and useless, like a Tesla abandoned in a redwood forest--no charger for miles.  And this experience has often been accompanied by a wild shame--that I should have been more prepared, or I should have seen that I was unprepared, or I somehow should have known something that I didn't.  I often look back in wonder and sadness that I spent most of my education mastering new information, very little time experimenting, taking risks, or visiting the emotional terrain of not knowing.

The second way that Peace's story strikes home, and this is one, oddly, I think a lot of moms might relate to, is that Robert Peace was a giver.  He tutored other families' children, he gave money to family and friends, he supported his mother, organized the legal defense of his incarcerated father, and in a lot of ways, spread himself thin on behalf of his community.  By doing all of this, he created a social world that perceived him as competent, resourceful, and empowered.  The reality was, his energy drained from his life.  He failed to be honest with himself and with others about how low his own reserves were, and eventually this had a fatal cost.

In these few ways, Robert Peace inspired me to take up the word "ask" this year.  He showed me that giving can sometimes be a cover up for where we feel small and scared, where we need to reveal to the world that we are under resourced, need help, or simply don't know what to do next.  And he reminded me that I am still learning about learning, that I still struggle with taking risks and not knowing.

I am deeply grateful to the writer, Jeff Hobbs, for creating this work of non-fiction.    This was a personal story for him:  Hobbs was Robert Peace's white Yale roommate.  He narrates a complicated story of race, class, education and poverty with clear sight and a big heart. I highly recommend it.

A Wild Night

Brette, Kirsten and I (aka Impact Guild) hosted a casual girlfriends' night out to see and discuss the movie Wild.  The movie, based on Cheryl Strayed's memoir by the same name, presents many opportunities to reflect on the nature of transformation and the paradoxes inherent in a wild life.  To deepen our group experience of the movie, we prepared a set of juicy discussion questions to talk about afterward.  We hoped our inquiries might stretch the group to engage in a different kind of conversation than they normally would, something maybe more intimate or varied.  But there was some awkwardness there.  We really didn't know if the group would engage with our questions or not.

After the movie was over, all twenty of us walked across the street to a cafe.   Our breathy conversation filled the air with gray mist and the magical sound of women chattering.  As one woman after another arrived into the warm cocoon of the cafe, Kirsten, Brette and I handed out two different sets of questions.  We invited each guest to pick a question they wanted to answer and discuss it with someone nearby.  

And similar to our first Impact Guild event, it was the sound of women's voices, the torrent of spirit and friendship, that lingers in my mind.  A cooing lullaby mixed with a rally cry that conjures deep in the bones comfort and a sharp, maybe dangerous strength--loosening me up and sparking magic in my veins--calling me home and challenging me to step out all at once.  One woman dreamed of competing in an amazing race, another recalled skinny dipping in Mexico, and a third learned that there might be hope yet that she'd survive her morning sickness.  Healing and play and adventure, it was the sound of all that.  

Before saying goodnight, we handed out a third set of questions.  Some were more personal, a few were darker, and all of them, we thought, were a siren call to go inward and explore--in a journal, in meditation, or on a long walk.  One sheet of questions at a time was taken, tucked into a purses and nestled in between notebooks, until there were only a few left for me to take home.

It was a rare and amazing satisfaction to feel these questions land in the hands of other women.  And so I thought I'd share them again here on the blog.  If you've seen Wild or plan to see Wild, please feel free to print these out, give them away, or even better, use them as an excuse to open a bottle of wine with friends and wonder aloud what wild means to you.

Love,
Cristina

Group questions:

Set 1

If you were going to take a 90 day expedition, where would you go?

If you could only take what you could carry on a long journey, would you take books?  Which ones?

What is your relationship to wildness?  Where do you get your wild fix right now?  Where in your life do you need to invite a little more wild?

Set 2

Where do you go to refresh or refuel?

If you were hiking alone for 90 days what foods would you miss?  What would be your Snapple and Lays?

We all make comebacks in our lives, maybe a lot of comebacks.  What is your next comeback?  What kind of expedition or adventure could you take to kick it off?

Take home questions:

In Wild Cheryl is attempting to become the woman her mother imagined her to be.  Is there a person in your life who has a vision of you that empowers you?  What would that person want for you right now?

What is your relationship to time alone?  How much do you get?  How much do you need?  What length retreat would be the right length for you?

In Wild, Cheryl goes out to nature to “be in the way of beauty” pointing toward the idea that there is some kind of care or goodness or benevolence in beauty?  What is your relationship to beauty?  to nature?  Can exposure to beauty heal?

Cheryl goes to some very dark places in her life.  In some ways, it could be argued the depth of her darkness makes way for the brilliance of her redemption.  What relationship does our dark side have to our light?  What do we gain from embracing our darkside?

Amy is Cheryl’s friend.  She is there for her in the dark times, supporting and challenging her at the same time.  She sends boxes that arrive on the trail.  Who is your Amy?  Does she know this?  What do you need her to know about your friendship?  What kind of support could you ask her for this year?  What support might you offer?

Motherhood sometimes seems like a long hike, not too unlike Cheryl's walk along the PCT….maybe you packed the wrong stuff, bought shoes that were too small, ran into scary shit you didn’t expect, and encountered some beautiful things too….if you imagined your motherhood journey like a long hike--what have been the last few important stops or episodes, and where are you headed next?

Cheryl’s hike has a lot to do with her grief process.  Her experience of her mother’s grief first leads her to a very dark place and then she course corrects with the hike on the PCT.  If you have experienced grief, how was your journey different from Cheryl’s?  How is it the same?  What insights or thoughts came up for you about grief during the movie?

One Little Word 2015

For the fourth year in a row, I am participating, alongside my friend Laurel,  in the practice of choosing a word for the year.  We were introduced to this habit by blogger, Ali Edwards, who offers a great online class called One Little Word.  I enjoy the prompts and ideas in the class, and even though I'm not as into scrapbooking as Ali Edwards is, I've signed up for her class again.

Last year my word was practice, and I'm finding that I'm having resistance around heading into another year and a new word.  I think it has to do with the fact that practice was a resonant word for me.  With practice, I deepened my writing practice, I settled into my role as a student of zen meditation, and I started my coaching practice.  As I write this, what I'm realizing is that all of that stuff, it's for life.  Practice was not last year's word or this year's word or next year's word, it is a part of who I am. 

That feels big.  It is like waking up to the fact that I am an oak tree or a cedar tree or a redwood tree.  I am not going to switch types, or wake up as something else one day this year or next.  I will grow and develop--there will be change, but practice will always be a part of me.  So even though the calendar pages will flip one after another as they do, that word, practice will carry on.  

And yet, here we are, beginning our next turn around the sun.  It is the time of year to choose another word.  Having lived in a major word for myself last year, there is a new spin on thinking of a word for this year.  Will it be another lifer?  Or will it be one that comes and goes the way flexible was in 2013?  Or are there a hundred other ways to live with a word that I haven't experienced yet?  Only another year + another word will tell.

In a way, this year's word chose me.  When it popped into my head, I thought, "No, no, that is a selfish word.  You need a word that is more inspirational.  Something stronger.  Maybe something prettier."  And yet, even before 2014 ended, I felt the word coming to my aid, popping up when I felt myself wanting to shut down, turn away or take sharp action.  Whenever this new word shows up I feel a tiny frisson of insecurity or unsureness, and it was this feeling that made me think, "this is a word I need to experiment with."

The word is ask.

As in:  ask for help
As in:  ask for insight
As in:  ask what's possible
As in:  ask what's needed
As in:  ask if there is another way
As in:  ask and you shall receive
As in:  ask what's important about this right now

Asking for me feels very humbling.  It means that I have to admit that I don't know, that I can't do all that needs to be done alone, it means that I don't have all the resources I need, and it means that sometimes I may be told no.  I may find that what I want is not possible.  What gets that little frisson going, that feeling of insecurity vibrating, is that ask is a word that could break my heart, which may be why I sometimes avoid asking.

But ask is also a very curious word, an open word, a word that has a lot of possibility.  It is a word that is important to coaching, to writing, and maybe even to meditation.  Ask sometimes feels 

like a bud that hasn't opened yet

or like looking up into the sky and asking "what's possible?"

For me, ask feels like an interesting challenge to take on in 2015.  

How about you?  Will you pick a word?  What will it be?  Would you consider posting it here or on Facebook?

Wishing you a Happy Healthy Peaceful New Year.

Love,

Cristina  

Another trip around the sun

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments, oh dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets

In midnights, in cups of coffee

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife

In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure, a year in the life?

How about love?

How about love?

How about love?

--Rent, the musical

Holiday Mistakes and Mastery

Sometimes December can feel like running a three ring circus as the stage lights slowly dim.  Five different things are going on at the same time, right as the theatre is about to go dark--there is a frenzy combined with exhaustion that is unique to this time of year.

This year I happen to be feeling it more than usual.  Work is drawing my time away from house and home.  The children are in three different schools.  The rain has finally returned, adding more mess and more chaos, and even more desire to snuggle down into bed or fill up a hot bath.

And after ten good years, our snow globe yard decoration 

has lost its steam.

Oh dear.

I feel like that myself a couple of times a day this month, and yet I am happy.

Two weeks ago I had the chance to chaperone my middle daughter's Brownie troop at the Girlscout Nutcracker workshop and performance down in San Jose.  And if I'm being honest, I did not start off the day with the best attitude.  First of all, the event took all day--all of a pre-Christmas, weekend day in December.  So there was that.  And then there was the fact that I was dubious about the performance I was going to have to sit through.  I was thinking--if I have to sit still on a pre-Christmas Sunday in December, I want to see the "real" Nutcracker, the one in San Francisco.  And then there were the logistics of ushering nearly twenty little ones for the day: lunches, bathroom trips, lost coats, you've been there.  So I was feeling a little grinchy.

But here's what happened.  As part of the workshop, we got a back stage tour of the San Jose Dance Theatre's Nutcracker performance, the longest running community based Nutcracker performance in the Bay Area.  We looked so closely at the staging you could see the brush strokes of the volunteers brushes.  We watched some of the performers, none professional dancers, practice on barre before the performance.  We listened to presentation by Girlscouts who gave us tastes of real sugar plums.  And we met the handful of moms dressed in black who maintain the army of costumes that a Nutcracker performance requires.  This year, they actually sew one of the dancers into her costume before she goes on stage, and then cut her out of it when it is time to go home for the night.  

And then there was the performance.  

Some dewdrops danced out of step.  The Russian dancers nearly dropped one of their leaping scene mates.  My daughter complained that when Drosselmeyer had his magical flying scene she could see the ropes.  Clara, though, had a brilliant night, as did her young prince.  And the two principals who had been hired to dance the pad de deux at the end of the ballet, they were magical, dancing their parts with the precise mastery that only emerges from long, hard serious training.

By the end, I was in tears, because I got something important for the first time.  The Nutcracker Ballet was written in 1892 by Tchaikovsky as the Christmas recital piece for the Imperial Ballet School of St. Petersburg.  It was intended to be a performance that included a range of dancers and dancing ability.  In the community performance by the San Jose Dance Theatre I experienced the Nutcracker, for the first time, in the way I imagined it was intended--as a performance for an entire community.  I saw how inclusive it was, and how the arc of the ballet led up to the final pas de deux.  I saw, really for the first time, that the Sugar Plum Fairy is Clara's guide to the dancing life, and that Clara's wintery dream is about growing up.  I always knew this about the ballet, but I really felt it in this one.  What I didn't know, what I had never felt before, was the wholeness of it--how fitting the mis-steps of the beginners are in this Christmas performance, and how important it is to the story to have all of it together.

So as we plow into the last week before Christmas, into the final week of the circus and the dimming light, this is what I am holding in my heart--the blessing of wholeness, the chance for even one second to hold the mistakes and the mastery in one hand, the frenzy and the rest, the dark and the light.  I saw it, right there, for a magical moment in the San Jose Dance Theatre's Nutcracker.    

A Holiday Leap

Friends, meet Sharon Wong.  She attended our November 2nd Event and took a leap.  At the event that day she decided to launch the Palo Alto chapter of The Shoebox Project, a charitable initiative that packages holiday gifts for women in transitional shelters.  

Here's the leap that she posted at the event!

Since that day a burst of grassroots goodwill has been spreading in our community as more and more people participate.  Groups of friends are hosting shoebox parties, businesses are offering donations, shelters are reaching out and asking to connect with this kind of support for their clients.  Kirsten, Brette and I will be hosting a party of our own on Wednesday December 10th at the University Club in Palo Alto if you want to stop by.

I had the chance to talk with Sharon about taking her leap.  In the interview below she shares some of what she's learned so far.  

My favorite Sharon-quote:  "I saw the cause was bigger than my fear of failure." 

Sharon, in a really short time you've successfully launched the Palo Alto chapter of The Shoebox Project.  What was it about the Playing Big event that got you into action? Why did you choose this idea?

I attended the Playing Big talk not knowing what to expect.  I went mostly to support my friend Kirsten Romer, who co-organized the event. However Tara Mohr's opening words, "You are all brilliant women playing small" inspired me to take on something new.  We all have fantastic ideas and dreams in our head that we don't make a priority, so it's great to get motivated.  I'm originally from Ottawa Canada, and duing my visit last year, I recalled seeing a picture of a car trunk full of shoeboxes filled with basic neccessities being sent to a women's shelter.  I  thought this would be a meaningful cause to bring to my community because it was a simple, hands-on way to make a difference and brighten the day of women needing encouragement and support.  I like that all ages can participate and that it can be done with a group of friends or by yourself at home, on your own time. 

What were the first three steps that you took and how did it feel taking them?

My first step was to start telling others about the project.  At this point I had decided to do it, but I knew if I told others, I couldn't back out of it the next day.  

Based on people's responses, my second step was to ask them if they wanted to get involved in the project, because I knew I would need support and couldn't do everything on my own.

My third step was to set deadlines for myself, so the project would stay in motion and be completed with an end date.  I realized I had to start immediately to have enough boxes for D
ecember 25th.

What has been the biggest surprise for you in taking on this project?

My biggest concern was that this project was dependent on others' participation during a busy time of the year.  However, the generosity of others has exceeded my expectations.  I received two boxes the next morning after I sent out my initial request.  Some of the boxes I've received really show how much people care.  Many strangers have emailed me asking how they can do more.  Businesses have generously donated. It's wonderful to see the different ways people are willing to help others in need. 

From the outside, the kinds of actions you've been taking look a lot like what I would consider Playing Big. Do you think this is your version of Playing Big? If so, what does it feel like to be Playing Big?

This was my first time leading a charity project so I wanted to start with an attainable goal.  As my project grew, I grew braver with it. When a second shelter reached out to me with a shoebox request, I saw the cause was bigger than my fear of failure, so I said yes, not quite knowing how we would achieve it. I'm thrilled that people from across the US are now asking me how to start a Shoebox Project in their region.  When you're doing something out of your previous realm of possibility and comfort zone, that to me is the essence of Playing Big.  I've realized that Playing Big is a state of mind.  You can apply the attitude to your daily activities.
   

What are you learning from your experience with the Shoebox Project? How does this shape your hopes and dreams for the future?

I've realized you don't need to overthink a unique, complex innovation to attain change for yourself or others, you just need to take that first leap. If you fall, just take another leap.  Once you have a meaningful goal, it's not about you and your inner critic anymore and you become braver and stronger when faced with obstacles. I like Tara Mohr's quote, "Be more loyal to your dreams than your fears."

*****
Sharon would love to hear from you.  She can be reached at @thesharonwong on Twitter, or if you see her around Palo Alto, stop and say hi!

Celebrate :: Finishing Day

From here on out, November 18 will officially be known as finishing day.  Yesterday morning I completed my last "assignment" on How To Write Your Own Ceremony.  A solid draft is complete.  It took a long time for me to get to this point. And I am happy.  The young writer in me is wide eyed at my ability to see the thing through.  The mom in me says, "Ha, you ain't seen nothin' yet, young writer.  There's more in there...so much more!"

But November 15 isn't finishing day just because I finished.  My friend Laurel finished her book today too.  Three years ago Laurel and I set out to run a Half Marathon--on a lark, to see if we could do it.  I wrote about it here.  We met our goal of finishing in three hours by the skin of our teeth, but more than meeting our goal, we found a way--a way through the long haul, through the weeks of training and ultimately through the race itself.  In the end, we both understood that we accomplished something together that we probably would not have been able to see through alone.  

We did not know it, but in this sideways way, we were becoming writers.  The Half Marathon set us on a course of rich mutual support.  I have a lot of thoughts about this, about how people are more connected than we appear to be, about how our identities rise up in the spaces between us, about the fact that if Laurel can see me finishing a project in her mind's eye, then I am much more likely to finish it.  This is a kind of magic--a kind of invisible human connection that I have been swimming in for a few years now--both with Laurel and with a few other friends.  We hold each other in a way that make more possible.  Being held like that changes things, it changes us, and I think it changes the world we live in.

So November 18th, Finishing Day, is more about that for me than anything.  I'm glad to be at a completion point with a project, but I'm even happier to be in a friendship that holds two women as writers.  To be nested in a friendship like that fills me with hope and faith that we will look back some day on these projects as our first projects, the first of many.

My Leap

Fourteen years ago Graham and I got married in a small chapel in Carmel, California.  I wore an ivory wedding dress with a huge skirt and a cheerful striped pattern.  We were married by Graham's dad in a very personal ceremony that included Rumi, a Declaration of Intent we wrote ourselves, and traditional vows that connected us to generations of happy marriages that came before ours.  

I loved that ceremony and that gathering of family and friends in a way that I had never loved anything before.  On that day I loved Graham in a huge way and that was obviously a big part of the day.  And there was something else too.  

I showed up for my wedding more complete than I had ever showed up for anything before, more myself than I had ever been before.  For years leading up to that event, my spirit had been cloaked under cover, my irrepressible instinct to pray was a shameful secret, all those bible verses that I had memorized and loved as a child, an embarrassment.  But at my wedding, all of that was allowed, all those pieces of me had a place and a role to play for the first time in so, so long.  

And my life changed.  I knew that my life's work was going to have to have something to do with that part of me that is like a moth to the flame of the heart, that loves language and the way humans use it to courage up hope or strength or understanding, that seeks traditions of all kinds carry us along, sending wisdom through time to each new generation.  And yet, I was not a religious person.  A traditional experience of Christianity had not held up under the rigor of an intellectual education--and this muddied the waters quite a bit.  I was a spiritual person who was not religious.  I had no idea how to turn my beliefs into a useful contribution or whether anyone would be along for the ride if I did.  Committing to this part of myself felt like agreeing to walk alone in the woods for a long, long time.  There was so much unknown then.

The one thing I knew was that the wedding had made sense to me.  Weddings seemed like a place where my perspective might be useful.  So I started to write a book about weddings.  I was 28, pretty clueless, and not ready to write yet.  When I look back at those pages, I can feel how hard I was trying, how much I was wanting to be helpful to others, when I needed so much shoring up myself.  I was never able to complete the project, but not because I didn't care or think the work was worth it, I just didn't have enough experience or strength to see it through at that time.  

But now I do.  

Over the last two weeks I have been hard at work revising a new version of that original project.  I'm calling it, "How to Write Your Own Ceremony:  The Super Short Guide."  I'm two writing sessions away from having a complete version.  I've commissioned a cover, and hope to have it up on Amazon by sometime in December.  For this to be an official leap, I need feedback from couples who are planning to get married.  If you or anyone you know is is planning a wedding, I would love the opportunity to share this project.

But even if that never happens.  Even if this project never sells one copy, completing it will have been worth it to me.  It is something I have had to do for myself, for the young writer who lives inside me, who was not able to finish back then, who ended up curled up crying under a desk, lonely and frustrated.  Honey, we're almost there, I tell her. 

A Waterfall into My Heart

I knew for awhile that this weekend was going to be full, that Friday was Halloween, that Sunday was the first event for Impact Guild, and then the very sad news that Saturday would be the memorial service for Riley, my friend Suzanne's son.  It was chaos and sadness and beauty and celebration all mashed into a scant forty eight hours.  I've hardly had the time to digest all that this weekend was to me, but want to hold on to a couple of moments...Forgive me the long post.  

Halloween
Halloween evening all three children went in separate directions.  Gwendolyn, our oldest, went on her own with friends for the first time.  Eloise and I joined up with two other families.  Graham and Chloe waited til seven and went with Chloe's friend Henry.  

Our neighborhood was like a pop up carnival.  There was a house with 200 free hotdogs and full sized candy bars, a dead end converted into Cirque du Soleil, and the usual line around the block at Steve Jobs house.  The streets, still wet from the afternoon rain, were jammed with masked strangers.  It got dark early and Old Palo Alto could have been a scene out of a zombie movie.  Walking around in it, it felt like the gears in my brain got completely jammed, like I had rocks between my ears.  A good friend asked me a question, and I couldn't understand the words he said.  He must have asked me the same thing in three different ways, and it just did not compute.  It wasn't until the next morning when I woke up that I was able to parse the question.  And then I was embarrassed, but relieved to have my normal brain back.

Saturday
Green was Riley's favorite color, and we were asked to wear green to his Memorial Service. So we did.  The service was held in the Multi purpose room of his elementary school, and the superintendent of schools presided.  One of the first things he said, was "Don't tell the fire marshals how many of us are in here today."  

One boy stood at the open mike.  "The last time I saw Riley was at the sleepover party before his operation.  At the party I lost my favorite sock, the $14 breast cancer awareness sock.  Everyone had gotten up, but a few of us were sitting around still. Riley was one of them.  It turned out he was sitting on my sock."  This is what it is like for a sixth grade boy's mind to make sense of things that don't make sense at all, it is sweet, and relieving and obvious that it could be captured in a story about a lost sock.

Riley's aunt and grammy read an essay of Riley's, and all I could think of then was shit, we lost a great writer.  He started his piece like this, "Have you ever been bored playing right field?"  and then there was, "The most interesting thing in right field that day was the smell of dew on the grass..."  and then, "in my brain I thought I should run, and then I realized I was already running."  Sweet, brilliant, baseball loving Riley wrote a piece that would break Robert McKee's heart, adhering in a completely natural and intuitive way to the art and science of story.  I am so mad/sad that I won't get the chance to read more from Riley.  

And then there was Suzanne, his excellent mother, doing the worst work a mother could ever have to do.  She arrived for him, for us, full of life and wonder.  In a gorgeous green lace dress that hugged every curve and could not have been a better celebration of the word green.  Her blonde hair tumbled long around her face and her face was worn and tired and she was so beautiful I can't even tell you.  I blew her a kiss between crowds of people.  

We all walked a lap around the track together as part of a child-friendly way to honor a lost friend.  Suzanne walked surrounded by a protective klatch of women.  She was in front and the women fanned around and behind her.  The sun shown, and they walked together.

During the service we sang the song Brave, a kind of pop, upbeat song.  It felt good to sing and have the music move through us.  I turned to watch the community bobbing together, and there, in the front row of the people standing was Suzanne.  She had her eyes closed and her palms open to heaven, and she wasn't just bobbing, but she was dancing, really dancing, and then I closed my eyes and swayed with Eloise on my lap and let the tears slide down my face.

Riley's grandad told a story of teaching Riley to keep his eye on the ball in baseball.  And that phrase has stuck with me.  Keep your eye on the ball--it means remember what's important.

Sunday

I woke up early and practiced my speaking parts twice.  That was what I had written on my to do list the night before and that's what I went ahead and did. It was good too, because when I was up there onstage in front of everyone I lost my cue cards and had to go from memory.  

I felt nervous for most of the day until I had been in the event space setting up for an hour and then I wasn't nervous any more.  It felt like I was a part of the room and everything was normal, like it was just another day.  

My favorite memory is of hearing everyone chat with one another, the gentle roar of a room full of women talking, the rumble of something coming so alive.  I could have stood there all day listening to that.  It was like a waterfall of goodness into my heart.  There were moments when I stayed still so that the sound could fill me completely.  

And when it was all over I especially enjoyed watching Tara take in the banner that we all created together.  And I tried to imagine what it must be like for her these days, unlocking so many people's inner doors and watching what happens when she does.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the event.  It was wonderful to be together.

Learn to Play and Play to Learn

Here's a photo I've taken, not once or twice, but maybe ten or twenty times.  Who knows, possibly more.   I just can't seem get it right with my iPhone.  I know if I used a more sophisticated camera, I might have a better chance.  But I want to capture the image with my iPhone, and my inability to do it really annoys me.  First I get a little peckish, then I convince myself I don't really care anyway.  I become aloof like a house cat and walk away, a little bit above it all.  

I'm going to go ahead and claim this as a "serious" talent--an ability to take something as light hearted as a photo of a dandelion and turn it into a project about getting it right and getting it wrong, about anticipation and disappointment, about whether I can or whether I can't.

Can you say buzzkill?

I've noticed this "talent" pop up a lot these days, as I try my hand at many new things to get ready for the first Impact Guild event on Sunday.  I watch the clamp of seriousness grip onto anything from planning my remarks to whether or not cake pops are just right for the tables.  And I don't know if you noticed, but the invitation Kirsten and I have put out in the world is to come play with us.

If nothing else, my personal experience with seriousness this month has convinced me more than ever that cultivating an attitude of playfulness in creative endeavors is helpful.  Playful is a lot more spacious than serious, playful gives plenty of room for mistakes, for first tries, for second tries, for a lifetime of tries actually.  It reminds our ego that the work is not really about us anyway--it's always for someone else, in service of someone else.  So if they laugh, all the better.  Playfulness invites our zany self, our silly self, our dark and stormy self--our whole range of intelligence into a project.  And most important it keeps learning fun.

The biggest risk of seriousness, for me at least, is that it can coyly convince me to shy away from learning. It gets me cozied up in my comfort zone, which feels safe for my ego, but in reality is dull and boring, a place where my soul can start to whither.

And who wants that?  My wish for myself this week, and for anyone whose working on a new endeavor, is to find a way to be playful, to wag more and bark less, to spin, to cartwheel, to swing or to fly, to find your way of getting from here to there that wakes you up to the wonder, to the possibilities right here, where the water is clean and runs from a spigot, where the leaves change color, where Madison Bumgarner can pitch like a god, and where ghosts and goblins and princesses and spooks will be knocking on your door tonight.  Have fun with it.